The use of the Internet has seen rapid growth over the last few years, fueled in significant part by availability and use of web browsing software that permits access, via a graphical user interface (“GUI”) to network servers which are part of the World Wide Web. These servers provide access to documents known as “web pages” or “web sites” using a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (“HTTP”). HTTP is an application protocol that provides user access to these web pages having various formats including text, graphics, images, sound, and dynamic features. Hypertext Markup Language (“HTML”) is the standard page description language used with HTTP and provides basis document formatting. HTML allows a web page developer to specify these hypertext links to other servers and to other files. A user using an HTML-compliant browser may specify a link via a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”). When the user does so, the client browser makes a transmission control protocol/Interface protocol (“TCP/IP”) request to the server associated with the link and consequently receives the corresponding web page formatted according to HTML. Note that XML is a substitute for HTML.
The developers of prior art web browsers such as “MOSAIC”, “NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR”, and “MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER” have focused their efforts on providing a rapid and efficient means for a user to access web pages having sophisticated graphical capabilities. Such web pages typically offer a wide variety of attention-generating features which include sound, animated graphics, banner advertisements, and continuously updated dynamic content, often tailored to a user's personal interests, side by side with lexically unordered hypertext links. These features, for the most part, improve the sensual experience a user has when researching the Internet and often distract the user away from their initial research goal. This distraction causes significant losses in productivity, as suggested by a widely known University of Michigan study which determined that an employee accomplishes almost twice as much by working on a single task for an hour than he does by working on that same task in 12, separate five minute intervals (cited for example in J. Harris Morgan, Can We Manage Time?, Texas Bar Journal, Vol 62, No. 7, 668 (July 1999)).
Intelliseek, Inc. of Cincinnati, Ohio, offers a method, known as “BULLSEYE” which uses automated agents to filter and find information which a user deems relevant to their search (see product information, available at http://www.intelliseek.com). Further, search results may optionally be saved under a particular file name for later retrieval. Still further, a “tracking” feature permits a user to program an agent tracker to automatically retrieve information of interest to the user when the user is logged on to the Internet. However, the search itself is not attributed to any particular project name or file during the research. No features are provided to enable the user to re-access the saved research based on a key word search of such saved projects.
Another firm, WebKeys Incorporated of California, provides a method, known as “PROWLER” (information available at http://www.webkeys.com/aboutwk.htm) that requires that individual users log on to the Internet using an individual user name and password. Access to certain categories of websites (i.e., “All age”, “Under 14, “Teenagers”, “Adult content”, and “Explicit violence/sexual content”) is granted or denied based on privileges that are determined by a system administrator. Further, a navigation history, associated with the user, is saved for administrative censoring purposes.
Other web resources such as “WESTLAW” and “LEXIS-NEXIS” provide Internet portals or web pages that require login by ID and password (i.e., subscriber sites) in order to gain access. Further, prior to beginning research in these secure subscriber sites, a client matter number may be input, which, optionally, is checked against a database of the user's client matter numbers, to confirm accuracy. However, because these are not browser-based, the user may leave these subscriber sites and do other task/research on the Internet that is not attributed to the client matter number. Thus, little improvement over prior art systems or methods of performing Internet research is offered.
Thus, no tools are available on the market that aid in directing or managing a user's Internet research such that one is able to concentrate on one project at a time. The lack of such tools is consistent with the name given the process of performing research on the World Wide Web, namely “surfing” or “browsing”, terms which imply a rather undirected and undisciplined approach to doing research and the lack of a predetermined business goal. Consequently, as has been the experience with many businesses that are using the web for project research, much time is wasted as the users, distracted by the attention-generating features, spend employer or client time researching subjects of personal interest or of interest to another project. Such distracting features thus make focused research using the prior art browsing methods almost impossible.
Further, no secure and convenient means has been provided which allows access to documents posted on a publicly accessible server or intranet which does not require the manual input a decryption key, Further no means is available whereby, solely information input at the time of accessing the Internet or intranet, optionally together with an IP address, decrypts such information.
Still, further, no performance measures have been developed to enable Internet searchers to access their performance with respect to their level of focus.
Bookmarks are used to mark particular Internet addresses or URLs, for later access. Lists of bookmarks can become quite long, making reviewing the contents of a list of bookmarks cumbersome.
Further, no means exists for organizing bookmarks irrespective of standard criteria, such as relevancy, to suit the information needs of a particular visitor.
Therefore, what is needed is a means to enable users having particular information needs to view the most pertinent sites first. In particular, what is needed is a system and a method that brings to the fore, sites which may be of particular interest to a particular type of user or an individual such as a client.